To Absent Friends: Marvin Miller

Marvin Miller, the first Executive Director of the Major League Baseball Players Union, died today at the age of 95.  Few men, and certainly no executive, cast a bigger shadow upon Major League Baseball than did Marvin Miller.  That he is not a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame is a supreme injustice, and proof that even decades after his retirement, he continues to rankle the baseball establishment.

I will not recount the historic contributions of Marvin Miller.  If you are a baseball fan, you already know them, and you know his place in history.  As an obit I just read on Yahoo! Sports just put it, if you were to draw up a list of the most influential people in baseball history, and if after five names your list does NOT include Marvin Miller, then you need to start your list over again.

At the SABR Convention I attended in Cincinnati a few years back, Miller was the Keynote Speaker, and it was fascinating to hear him.  Well in his eighties and long retired at the time, Miller still retained all of the passion that he brought to the job when he first took it in 1966.  Every player in MLB should wear some sort of patch on their uniforms in 2013 in tribute to Miller, but I doubt that the Lords of the Realm will allow it to happen.

RIP Marvin Miller.

The College Conference Landscape

The collegiate sports landscape underwent yet another huge change with the announcement last week that the University of Maryland and Rutgers University would be leaving the ACC and Big East, respectively, to join the Big Ten.  Reports are surfacing that other schools in the Big East are being coveted by the ACC, while schools in the ACC are being coveted by the Big Ten.  

Where is this leading?  Well, I believe, and I am far from original in this thinking, that where we are eventually heading, probably before the end of this decade, is to a set up of four sixteen team "Super Conferences".  These conferences will be the descendants of what we now know as the Big Ten, Big Twelve, PAC 12, and SEC.  Sixty-four schools known primarily for football, and make no mistake, this is a football driven initiative because that, as Willie Sutton might put it, is where the money is.

Some questions:

What happens to the Big East and ACC?   As I postulated the other day, the Big East is done.  It needs to return to it's roots as a haven for non-football and primarily Catholic basketball playing colleges.  As for the ACC, haven't you always thought of the ACC as a basketball, and not a football conference?  I know that I have.  I fear that a school like Duke, which hasn't been relevant in big time football in my lifetime, is going to be left in the dust.

What happens to Pitt?   Pitt is committed to the ACC starting next year, but I fear that they, and schools like Syracuse, UConn, and, yes, even a kingpin like Duke, are going to be forced to settle for something else once the 64 super teams are settled upon.  What that "something else" will be is anybody's guess.  Conferences like the ACC and whatever might be left of the Big East will be second tier conferences.

Is it possible that the four Super Conferences thumb their noses at the NCAA, secede, and set up their own self-governing body?  Some in-the-know media people say that this is not beyond the realm of possibility.

What will Notre Dame do? A most interesting question.  Notre Dame has fiercely coveted its independent status where football is concerned, and one of the primary reasons, although not the only reason, for that is their unique football TV contract with NBC.  However, that contract reportedly pays ND $15 million a year.  That's a lot of money to me, but in a world where Maryland shrugs off a $50 million exit fee from the ACC, $15 million is relative peanuts.  AD Jack Swarbuck is already expressing concerns about the future of the ACC.  In the new world order of the Super Conferences, Notre Dame would be a perfect fit for the Big Ten (even though geography is becoming less and less of a factor), and their share of the loot from the Big Ten Network should easily eclipse what they are pulling in from NBC.  It may seem unimaginable to many for Notre Dame to be anything but an independent, but, as a great man once said, the times they are a-changin'.

Does it make sense for minor sports teams, like swimming, lacrosse, and golf, for example, to schedule meets, games or matches that involve such disparate locations as, say, Lincoln, Nebraska and Piscataway, New Jersey?   No, it doesn't, unless there is just so much money from football that the expenses involved in such scheduling just won't matter.  Perhaps a new paradigm involving such sports needs to be developed in this new world order, and just what that is, I don't know.

What becomes of basketball's March Madness?  Good question.  Will the sixty-four super conference schools set up their own hoops tournament at season's end, relegating schools such as Pitt, Syracuse, Duke, Connecticut (theoretically speaking) to play in a beefed up NIT-type event?  Don't forget, the NCAA hoops tourney is a major cash cow itself, but it seems that even this is dwarfed by whatever money the new football set-up will generate.  If the Super Sixty-Four do secede from the NCAA, will the NCAA swallow hard and say, "hey, it's OK if you guys want to still be with us for basketball"?  And will a basketball tournament involving only the four Super Conferences still have the cachet among the bracket-pool playing public as the current tournament set-up has?

While many of these thoughts and opinions are my own, I am also indebted for the input of opinions expressed by guests - such as Bob Ryan, Michael Wilbon, and Pat Forde -  on the Tony Kornheiser Radio show podcasts, as well as the opinions of friends such as Dan Bonk and Fred Shugars.

Happy Birthday, Tom Seaver

Hall of Fame Pitcher Tom Seaver turns 68 years old today.

This picture is how I always think of Tom Seaver.  A fantastic competitor and perhaps the best pitcher of his generation.

• 311-205 career W-L record
• 2.86 career ERA
• Five time twenty game winner
• 231 complete games
• 61 shut outs
• 3,640 strike outs
• Five time league leader in strike outs

He played for the Mets at a time when they were among the Pirates' most bitter rivals, so I never much rooted for Tom Seaver, but in looking back, I'm honored to say that I saw him pitch.

Happy Birthday!

Well Played, Notre Dame...and Other Sunday Morning Thoughts

Big College Football day yesterday.....

• Congratulations to the University of Notre Dame on their 22-13 win over USC last night.  The win secures an undefeated regular season and a berth in the BCS title game in January.  They thoroughly earned that victory last night, especially with those goal line stands.  Very impressive.  If I am a Notre Dame fan, however, I would be concerned that the Irish had to settle for field goals on multiple occasions when touchdowns were within easy reach, but that is a concern for another day.
• One of the many ridiculous aspects of the BCS System (which has one more year to live) is that ND now must wait 45 days to play in the game that will decide the Championship.  With a conference title game ahead of them, their presumptive opponent,  Alabama or Georgia, will have "only" 38 days of idleness before taking on the Irish.
• As I said, I salute Notre Dame for their terrific season, but, and with apologies to my friends who are ND loyalists, I find Brian Kelly to be a very hard guy to like.  This, of course, does not make him unique among college football coaches.
• With apologies to SABR Buddy, Facebook Friend, Razorback Alum, and SEC Loyalist Madison McEntire, I have to say that I am delighted to note that there will NOT be an all-SEC BCS title game this year.  
• Does Pitt's shellacking of Big East leader Rutgers yesterday say more about Pitt, Rutgers, or the overall quality of Big East football in 2012?
• And does Pitt's near victory over title game-bound Notre Dame a few weeks back say more about Pitt or Notre Dame?
• I think that the Big East as a football conference is done.  Dead as a doornail, as Scrooge said of Marley.  I think that the Big East needs to reinvent itself back into what it was originally intended to be - a basketball only conference for non-football playing and predominantly Catholic colleges and universities.
• Penn State closes with a win over Wisconsin and an 8-4 record.  If you are reading this, you know all about the obstacles that faced the team and new head Coach Bill O'Brien coming into this season, so I won't recount them again.  Suffice to say that what O'Brien and his players did was one of the best stories in college football this year.
• Special props to the Penn State players who stayed when they had a chance to leave, but the real test for O'Brien and the team will begin now.  Will players who are now sophomores and juniors decide to leave if the opportunity presents itself? And what will be the quality and the number of players that O'Brien will recruit when those players know that they will have no chance of playing for a conference championship or in a Bowl game over the course of their four years?
• And what about Bill O'Brien himself?   Stories of him being on NFL teams' wish lists persist and he is coyly making no effort to scuttle those stories.  From a pure football point of view, should he decide to leave Happy Valley, that night be a blow almost as difficult from which to recover as any other that has faced PSU in the past year.
• I would like to think that O'Brien will stay the course and remain at Penn State, but if you rely on the sense of loyalty of college coaches, you are bound to be disappointed.
• On the subject of those players who stayed, it was a great gesture for all the Penn State players to wear the number 42, the number of injured senior Mike Mauti, on their helmets yesterday.  More than any other player, Mauti really symbolized Penn State this year.
• Oh, and speaking of coaches who are difficult to like, as I was earlier, did you see where Ohio State honored their 2002 National Championship team at yesterday's game?  This included honoring Coach Jim Tressel and having those '02 players carrying Tressel into the stadium on their shoulders.  
• No doubt the Buckeyes Nation roared their approval of this.  I guess they forgot that Tressel is the prime reasons why this year's 12-0 team is on probation and ineligible to compete for the BCS Title. 

Moving onto the pros, the Steelers take on the Hated Browns today on the lakefront.   I have to be honest and say that the rash of injuries that have confronted the team, especially at quarterback, have diminished my expectations, which weren't all that high to begin with, for the team for the remainder of the season.  Don't get me wrong, I'll be planted in front of the tube come 1:00 and rooting like always, but the emotional investment that comes with high expectations just aren't there.  Of course, all of that could change with a win today in Cleveland and in Baltimore next week, followed by an earlier than expected return by Ben Roethlisberger, but at this point, that's not the smart way to bet.

To absent Friends: Cleve Duncan

Regular readers know that I like to check out the obituaries to find the passing of perhaps obscure, but nonetheless significant, persons from our Popular Culture.  So it is today that I note the passing of Cleve Duncan at the age of either 77 or 78, depending on what source you check.

Cleve Duncan was the lead singer of a 1950's R&B one-hit-wonder group called the Penguins.  Still wondering who he is?  Well, there is no doubt that if you are of a certain age, you no doubt danced to the Penguins only big hit in some sweaty high school gym, and you have no doubt heard it in countless movies, as the tune is often used in soundtracks to evoke a certain era.   The song is "Earth Angel".  Released in 1955, Rolling Stone Magazine rates it as one of the 500 greatest rock & roll songs of all time.

No one may know the name of Cleve Duncan, and I don't know what kind of a life he had, but it must be pretty cool to know that you sang a song that people will be listening to forever.

For your listening pleasure:

RIP Cleve Duncan

To All Loyal Readers.....

Happy Thanksgiving 2012!

Happy Birthday, Goldie Hawn

For those of us old enough to remember Laugh-In, we send Happy 67th Birthday greetings to  Goldie Hawn, who certainly qualifies to high standings in the Aging Babe Division.  I'd say that she's aging gracefully, wouldn't you?